


Naught to Fear

by story_monger



Series: The Particles that Make Us [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9203183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/story_monger/pseuds/story_monger
Summary: Sometimes, Mulder wishes his daemon didn't trust everyone so damn much.One shot; takes place in "Beyond the Sea."





	

**Author's Note:**

> So...maybe this series isn't as dead as I thought it was?
> 
> Mulder's daemon is a gray hare named Vaerida; Scully's is a golden eagle named Odran.

Mulder enters his apartment building with his teeth clenched and snow coating his shoes and the bottom of his pants. He stamps his feet hard against the floor; a dirty puddle pooling around the building’s entryway suggests that his neighbors have been doing the same thing all day.

Strains of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” echo from someone’s apartment as Mulder climbs the steps to his floor. It has a tired, sleepy tone, much like the disheveled wreathes and limp decorations dotting peoples’ doors. New Year’s was a few days ago and Christmas is becoming a foggy memory. People will have to consider packing up the decorations by the end of the week. Mulder’s door is empty of any such decorations. Not that Mulder considers himself a Scrooge, but with a father who’d been raised Jewish and a mother who was nominally Christian but never of the religious persuasion, Christmas seemed arbitrary past a certain age.

“Vae,” Mulder says when he clacks the door shut behind him. He shuffles to the couch and collapses onto it, letting himself sink into the pliable, old leather before he starts worrying about the snow and dirt he’s just tracked in. “Vae,” he says again. “You awake?”

“I’m cold,” comes her muffled reply from somewhere under his coat. Mulder slides off his scarf and undoes the top three buttons on his overcoat. Vae emerges looking shrunken somehow. Her ears are flat against her skull.

“I had to do all the walking,” Mulder points out.

“That changes nothing, honestly.”

The phone rings just then, and Mulder musses the fur on Vae’s back before leaning nearly horizontal to reach the phone sitting on his side table.

“Mulder,” he says. He takes stock of his position then decides to commit and lay down properly. He lets his dirty, snowy shoes hang off the edge of the couch as Vae burrows back under his coat with a scuffle of movement.

“It’s Scully,” comes the reply.

“Scully, hey,” Mulder switches the phone from one ear to another. “Something happen?”

“What? Oh, no, I just wanted to make sure you got home all right. The snow was already starting to pile up by the time I left the office.”

Her voice sounds tinny somehow, like her mouth is further from the mouthpiece than usual. In the beat of silence, Mulder hears a thin hiss, rhythmic chopping sounds, and voices somewhere in the background.

“You having a dinner party?” he asks, and finds himself grinning when he tries to imagine the kind of people Dana Scully would invite to a party.

“Not so much, just me and my parents,” Scully says. The phone statics briefly, and her next words are clearer. “They don’t like restaurants, so the next thing they’re willing to accept is a dinner from their daughter.”

“Oh, Dana, you’re making us sound like tightwads,” says a faint female voice.

Mulder looks into the dim ceiling and imagines the scene on the other end of the telephone: a sink full of dirty dishes, a stove hissing with pots and skillets, Odran perched on a kitchen chair, and Scully in the middle of it with a kitchen knife in one hand and the phone held between her ear and shoulder. He can’t quite picture the Mr. and Mrs. Scully, though.

“Anyway, so you’re home?” Scully asks.

“Damp and cold, but home,” Mulder assures her.

“Good, good,” Scully says. She sounds vague now; probably checking something on the stove.

“I’ll let you go,” Mulder says. He thinks to tell her that he appreciates the call. That it reminds him of how his grandparents would always ask his mother to call them as soon as the family got home, just to put them at ease. “Bring me a doggie bag tomorrow,” he says instead, and the huff of laughter he gets makes him grin again.

“If there’s anything left, sure,” Scully says. “See you, Mulder.”

Mulder waits and listens to Scully say from an echoing distance “No, mom, I was going to let it cook anoth—" _Click_.

Mulder blindly gets the phone back into its cradle and lets his eyes slide shut. A few more minutes, then he’ll take a hot shower.

“You know what?” Vae asks.

Mulder grunts.

“We made it to 1994 without the X-Files being shut down.” Vae shifts position. “That’s better than what I was predicting.”

“Geeze, really? Pessimistic.” A pause. “Not so sure about making it to 1995, though.”

“Pessimistic.” Vae echoes. A thoughtful pause. “I think it’ll depend on what Scully’s been including in those reports. Wish they’d let us read them.”

“Why don’t you sweet-talk Odran into giving you a hint?” Mulder asks around a stifled yawn. “You two’re always talking.”

Another long silence passes.

“We don’t talk about those sorts of things so much,” Vae says. Mulder is tempted to ask what they _do_ talk about, but he already knows Vae’s answer would be vague at best. Daemons often carry out conversations—verbal or not—that run parallel to humans’ but at the same time aren’t meant for them. Some things wouldn’t translate.

“Maybe bring it up once, then,” Mulder says, settling one hand behind his head. “Really casually.”

“Odran’s not stupid. He’d see what I’m getting at.” Vae sounds doubtful, but Mulder can tell she’s going to give it a shot. She’s at least as curious as he is. He frowns at the ceiling.

“Be careful,” he says.

“What?”

“You know. Just. Be careful.”

It only takes Vae another few seconds to understand what he’s driving at; he can feel her faint flush of annoyance once she does.

“Odran isn’t Aurelio,” she says. “No more than Scully is Phoebe.”

“Listen, you were being awfully friendly with him, and it led to…poor decision making on our part. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Not friendly!”

“Tolerant, then.”

It had been supremely awkward watching Vae allow Phoebe’s handsome Abyssinian cat daemon slide along her like Mulder and Phoebe were still going steady. He hadn’t dared checked to see Scully and Odran’s reactions. Vae hadn’t exactly been broadcasting ease with Aurelio’s antics throughout that week, but she never quite pushed him away either. It dismays Mulder that he understands her mindset.

Vae is like that. She crowds up against anyone who will let her in; oftentimes Mulder feels that she forgets pulling away is an option. And while on one hand Mulder wants to teach Vae caution so they can both be safe, he also finds that he doesn’t have the heart to change her. To change them.

Mulder sighs and brings up one hand to stroke down Vae’s back. One of her ears twitches dully.

“I don’t think Odran is dangerous,” she says in a low, mulish voice. “I really don’t. Not the way Aurelio is.”

“He’s taken the shape of an eagle.”

“Mulder, please.” Vae lifts her head slightly. “You don’t believe that pop psychology crap.” Mulder purses his lips.

“You’re right. I don’t,” he admits.

“So?”

“I’m just remembering what’s happened before. I’m trying to be the cautious one.”

Vae doesn’t answer that immediately. She huddles down in Mulder’s coat with a faint air of defeat. Together, they listen to the neighbor swear at his keys while he struggles with the lock, before he’s manages to get the door open and slam it shut a half second later. Under Mulder’s hand, Vae seems to shrink even more.

“Fine. I’ll be careful,” she says.

Mulder nods, eyes still turned toward the ceiling, hand still stroking her back.


End file.
